


Decisive Victory

by Cheloya



Category: Pet Shop of Horrors
Genre: Alcohol, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-10-27 06:52:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10804026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheloya/pseuds/Cheloya
Summary: Old, imported. One day Vesca will learn that Dee and alcohol mean nothing but trouble for him.





	Decisive Victory

The first shot didn't do much. It very rarely did. The purpose of the first shot, Vesca was pretty sure, was to lull you into a false sense of security, boost your confidence, so that even before the alcohol hit your bloodstream properly, you thought you'd be able to do this easily. No problem. Dee never drank with the rest of them; stood to reason he'd have a lower tolerance. The first shot let him ignore the fact that reason and Dee were mutually exclusive.

The second shot left him grinning; it hadn't really touched him yet, and that confidence was with him, still. He wasn't exactly a champion at the old shot competition, but he'd do for Dee, all right. Vesca would leave him pale and puking, and see how diamond-sharp his mind was when he woke up to the hangover _this_ 'd give him. Dee smiled at him and asked, merrily, if they should take turns pouring. Vesca saw no reason why not: Dee never cheated against Vesca. (The second shot had the happy effect of letting him forget that Dee had never _needed_ to cheat to win.)

The third shot worried him a little. Dee wasn't veering off to one side of the table yet; was still offering to pour, in fact. Vesca told him he could pour the next one, and painstakingly refilled their glasses. If this one didn't do it, he thought, maybe he'd have to start listening to Sally when she told him things like _Dee doesn't feel bee stings_ or _that's poison ivy on his desk_. The third shot gave him time to watch Dee's eyes crinkle and his lips turn upward, and to tell him to go fuck himself when he lifted the over-filled glass without spilling a drop.

The fourth shot was when Dee gained control of the bottle, and around the time that Vesca started staring at the glasses like a hawk just to be absolutely goddamn sure that the bastard was giving them equal portions. He squinted so hard from then on that he probably lost half the liquid between the tabletop and his mouth, but at least he was certain that Dee was consuming his fair share of the alcohol. At least, it looked like Dee. The fourth shot was around when his eyes started blurring, but that didn't matter - his eyesight was pretty shitty, anyway.

The fifth shot was when Sal's face fell forward to mash the table, and the rest of the gang (knowing better than to interrupt a competition between the bio-chem natural and the one who struggled hardest to beat him) put together their remaining funds to get a cab back to her place. Vesca hardly noticed them leaving, still too intent upon Dee's hand - not on the neck of the bottle, but positioned carefully around its middle (waist?), probably so he had to touch it in as few places as possible. The fifth shot was when Vesca had to scowl and try to snatch the bottle back, because the long nails and delicate fingers (and the alcohol - _mostly_ the alcohol, even) were starting to give him ideas.

The sixth shot was when Vesca became aware of the fact that he and Dee were sitting at distinctly different angles, and that only Dee was still perpendicular to the floor. When he tried to sit up, he sat up too far, and nearly fell off his seat in the other direction. Dee's hand on his arm was all that saved him. "Ready to stop, Mr University Student?" he asked, and laughed more throatily than usual when Vesca slurred a curse at him. The sixth shot was when Vesca realised he was losing; had been losing since the start.

Damn that first shot.

The seventh shot went all over the floor when Vesca's fingers (swiftly going numb) refused to catch the glass completely before he tried to pick it up. Dee sipped his own, smiled warmly, and offered that round to Vesca as a handicap. It wasn't really fair, Dee said, to pit an unsuspecting American against a Chinese. The seventh shot definitely made up for the shots he might've spilled bits of earlier, because Vesca grabbed the bottle and took an angry swig. Hell if he was going to win handicapped.

In possession of the bottle once more, Vesca poured the eighth shot - all over the table, with Dee pulling back hastily in order to save his expensive robe. Finding his shotglass empty, Vesca shrugged and took another mouthful from the bottle. Dee's expression was blurry, but he was pretty sure it was distaste (if not outright disgust) before the bottle was delicately prised from his hand, and Dee poured his own shot, drank it, and then poured the next for both of them. "Almost there, Mr University Student," he encouraged, smilingly.

At least, it looked like a smile. Vaguely. He couldn't tell from here.

He didn't see the ninth shot, or taste the ninth shot, or notice much of anything after that. The world had narrowed to Dee; the paleness of his skin, the darkness of his hair, and the strangely pervasive scent of his perfume, even in a crowded bar like this.

The tenth shot was nowhere in his memory. He woke up feeling like hell, unable to even really open his eyes without feeling like he'd rather trade them for some aspirin, and after some cautious groping, found his way into a foreign bathroom. His mouth tasted like something had died in there, but oddly, his breath didn't seem too bad. He could still smell perfume, anyway, and that had to be a good thing, right? Nice stuff. Familiar. Sweet.

It wasn't until he'd splashed his face and managed to squint into the bathroom mirror that he noticed where he was, and since that was also when he noticed the mouth-shaped bruises all along his collar bone - and the lipstick smears across his face and chin, petering out down along his neck, one earlobe still quite stained with it - that was when he nearly smashed his chin into the basin, when his knees went out from under him and he sat down, hard, on Dee's bathroom floor. He stayed sitting there for as long as it took Dee to roll into his warm patch, frown, yawn, and get up to make coffee.

Vesca might have felt a whole lot better about the entire thing if the first thing Dee said hadn't been a smirking, "I suppose that makes me the victor."


End file.
